When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it's art or not.

The book, the idea of a book or the image of a book, is a symbol of learning, of transmitting knowledge.. I make my own books to find my way through the old stories.

I was interested in transcendence from a very early age. I was interested in what was over there, what was behind life. So when I had my first communion I was very disappointed. I had expected something amazing and surprising and spiritual. Instead all I got was a bicycle. That wasn't what I was after at all.

Life is an illusion. I am held together in the nothingness by art.

But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.

Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.

As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It's not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can't come out in any other way, then the other things - the skill and technique - will follow.